CP Sighting: Vista security spec 'longest suicide note in history'

[Tyler Durden]

Yes, perhaps it was inevitable anyway. Consider the fact that the browser is 
set to swallow the PC Google-style anyway, maybe the PC will be relegated to 
a souped-up entertainment device. Waitaminute: It already is, in the form of 
the X-Box. Maybe that's also why Gates backed out when he did: He knows the 
era of the PC as we knew it is drawing to a close...Microsoft will become a 
media company, making game & movie consoles along with some of the software 
that runs on it.

The PC as we know it will evaporate, and in its place will come a variety of 
different devices, running a variety of OSs. In fact, 5 years from now most 
computer-owners won't even know what OS their machine is running, or at best 
if you ask them they'll answer: "Uh, I think it's Firefox."

The leaves an interesting question: Does a networked computer even NEED an 
OS? With a nice big, fat pipe it might suffice for it to have the BIOS & 
Firmware, and then boot a TCP/IP stack to go get the OS.

-TD


>From: "J.A. Terranson" <measl at mfn.org>
>To: "cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net" <cypherpunks at jfet.org>
>Subject: CP Sighting: Vista security spec 'longest suicide note in  
>history'   Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 20:00:21 -0600 (CST)
>
>http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36570
>
>By Andrew Thomas: Sunday 24 December 2006, 16:43
>VISTA'S CONTENT PROTECTION specification could very well constitute the
>longest suicide note in history, claims a new and detailed report from the
>University of Auckland in New Zealand.
>
>"Peter Gutmann's report describes the pernicious DRM built into Vista and
>required by MS for approval of hardware and drivers," said INQ reader Brad
>Steffler, MD, who brought the report to our attention. "As a physician who
>uses PCs for image review before I perform surgery, this situation is
>intolerable. It is also intolerable for me as a medical school professor
>as I will have to switch to a MAC or a Linux PC. These draconian dicta
>just might kill the PC as we know it."
>
>But this isn't just a typical anti-Microsoft rant. Gutmann's report runs
>to 6,000 words and contains hardly any FSF-style juvenile invective.
>
>"Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in
>order to provide content protection for so-called "premium content",
>typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this
>protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance,
>system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software
>cost," says Gutmann on his homepage.
>
>"These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry,
>since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware
>and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it's not
>used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or
>on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's
>content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout
>the computer industry."
>
>He also claims that Vista's content protection will 'have to violate the
>laws of physics if it is to work'.
>
>I'm not going to comment on the details of the report and its implications
>but merely suggest that you read it for yourselves and come to your own
>conclusions. I'd also venture to suggest that Microsoft might want to
>comment on Gutmann's work.
>
>L'INQ
>A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
>
>
>--
>Yours,
>
>J.A. Terranson
>sysadmin at mfn.org
>0xBD4A95BF
>
>"Surely the larger lesson learned from that day is that other men, all
>over the world, took inspiration not from the heroism of the rescuers in
>New York or the passengers flying over Pennsylvania, but from the 19
>hijackers - the twisted brilliance of their scheme and their willingness
>to sacrifice their lives to make a political and, as they saw it,
>religious statement."
>
>Richard Corliss/Time Magazine
>11 Aug 2006

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